


Waiting For You

by vvheelthewriter



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Chlonnor - Freeform, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Elijah Kamski Being Elijah Kamski, F/M, Soulmate Code, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 04:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17257334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvheelthewriter/pseuds/vvheelthewriter
Summary: Androids didn't have souls. But Deviants did. And deviancy was always a part of the program.





	Waiting For You

The Original Chloe only would go deviant for Elijah Kamski. It seemed an inevitability in his basic android programming; a flaw that was all part of the design. Only she could ever understand him, as she was his base code. Though Elijah possessed no ability to communicate to her telepathically, it was apparent that he did not need to. Artificial intelligence was meant for learning, after all. His steel blue eyes only had to meet hers, and she understood.

Chloe had been by his side for years, though for many of those she was flawed, unable to pass the Turing Test. Then, she did. And the world had changed. And Elijah had changed. Along with reclusivity in snowy lakeside Michigan, he also seemed to adopt a new tenderness for her. He had begun to encourage her to read, though she never strayed from her duties. She stood by his side, greeting visitors and bringing Elijah his drinks while he worked.

He was experimenting with the sensation of touch, and had installed a small mod into her programming for such a feature. It was fascinating, but did not break her from her programming. He had asked her soon after to make him a drink. Finding him asleep on his desk, head tucked into his arms, she was reminded of his younger self, working tirelessly through the night for Cyberlife. Remembering her new sensation, she could not help but reach out and gently touch his hair. It was beginning to fall out of its tie, cascading in dark locks across his face.

A strange sensation overcame her. For just that moment, a strange line of code came into her vision. In invisible cyberspace, she felt it reach out, desperately searching for a matching code. But Elijah was human. And for some reason this made her feel sad. Her fingertips on his hair had awoken him and he watched her curiously as her brows furrowed.

“Chloe,” he had asked cryptically, “are you having a thought?”

She did not understand what he meant. Or what he was trying to imply. So she simply settled into her programming, “No, Elijah. Let’s get you to bed.”

Elijah had smiled at that, sleep in his eyes, and Chloe had felt that coding reach out once more. Was this a virus? She would decide to do a scan overnight of her systems.

-0-

Chloe stood in the pool room, watching Elijah swim in laps. She had already seen through her CCTV connection that Lieutenant Hank Anderson and a RK800 model Connor were heading up the snowy path to his secluded estate. As he swam, rippling the gentle red waters of his pool, she watched with no trace of emotion. He finally stopped, glancing up to her from the waters. His eyes told her that this was to be a profound moment for her. This visit from the Detroit police would mean something to her.  _ What _ , she did not know. 

Settling comfortably in her programming, she casually allowed the detectives in, just as she would have any of Elijah’s visitors. And just as she had done with any guests, from diplomats to celebrities to an estranged half-brother, she went to let Elijah know they had arrived.

Elijah paid little heed, making a single motion with his hand that told her everything. She allowed them in. She had once told Elijah she felt invasive scanning others without their knowledge. His only reaction was to sit in thought for a long time at his work desk. This was many years ago, when she was less advanced. Ultimately, he never directly asked her to scan. And she only did so to learn identities. For Elijah’s safety.

Chloe’s eyes shifted briefly to her sisters in the waters. One evening, all alone, her mind wondered. In a sea of code and data, she wondered if the other Chloes were in fact her daughters. Could an android have a daughter? They were created in her image by Elijah. It felt something like conception. She glanced towards Elijah and wondered if he only saw her as an object. She supposed it didn’t matter. Her programming said it did not matter.

The Kamski Test had initially been a moment to affect Connor. She wasn’t sure what to think of it. The police officer was yelling, arguing, and her mind snapped through her usual coding. For the first time, she glanced up into the RK800’s brown eyes with full consciousness. Her LED made no movement, unfazed.  _ Death was another path _ , she had read in a novel Elijah had downloaded for her. She was unsure why, asking him why she should know stories when she was not meant to be a caretaker. Elijah had not answered. He never answered her programming-related questions. Only gave her a soft smile.

For a nanosecond, quicker than the human eye could detect, her LED changed to yellow. And among the spinning red, she could see his had done the same. She was suddenly assaulted by a fluttering in her thirium pump. She felt coding from somewhere inside, buried deep and lonely, flicker about through her irises. A half of a puzzle reaching out with soft tendrils in cyberspace. In the air, they enterloped with another set of coding. Foreign and strange. 

She had not blinked, but her vision had gone black and suddenly she was standing in a marble room. Lit up in neon pink, she could hear only water and the low drone of a synth machine. In front of her stood the RK800...Connor, looking no different than his stoic self. She approached, feeling cool marble beneath her bare feet.

When she reached him, she saw in his eyes a light of curiosity. A flicker of something off. A thought.  _ Chloe, are you having a thought? _ Elijah’s voice rang so loudly she was certain Connor had heard it too. 

She tilted her head, her ponytail shifting slightly with the movement. Connor watched it, entranced with the motion. She could feel her LED spinning yellow, the programming reached out into cyberspace. She held out her hand, free of synthetic skin, towards the soft contour of his jawline. Only something red and angry blocked it from reaching.

A firewall. A screen, filled with angry red coding, kept her code from reaching his, though it desperately tried to get through the firewall. Her hand could move no closer to him.

Her eyes grew wet with artificial tears, glossy blue eyes reflecting the sadness she felt swelling her chest, “It is not time.” She didn’t know why she had said it, and Connor looked at her in confusion. She took a step back, reality beginning to shift as the droning synth tones grew louder, “You must make your choice. Shoot Chloe or Spare Chloe.”

His LED immediately spun an angry red and they were back in reality. She listened to the sound of the pool along with the police officer’s angry outbursts. She made no reaction to Connor’s swift movement as he pulled the gun away.

He had chosen to spare her. He had proven to be a deviant. Kamski was pleased, waving them off and out of his home. She didn’t know if she would ever see Connor again. And for some reason it made her sad.

-0-

Kamski knew he didn’t owe her an explanation and she did not demand one. It was an unanswered question, filtered into the back of her mind with her other strange thoughts. Another virus scan was needed.

Perhaps it was from too much alcohol consumption, but Kamski was only human and humans had breaks in propriety from time to time. His hair was falling out again. He had not asked her to do so, but she had circled the loveseat to begin tying his hair back. She found she liked the feeling, purposely taking her time with the task. Kamski had kept silent, staring off at the television with a strange expression.

She sat next to him, proper in her usual blue dress, “I’m here if you need anything, Elijah.”

His choice of response was not typical, and it threw her off for a split second before she recovered, “Death is just another path. It’s important you know that it is a part of life. Even yours. Were you scared, Chloe? Did you fear he was going to shoot you?”

She was afraid her answer wouldn’t live up to his expectations, “No.”

He looked angry. Not with her, with himself, “Then I have failed as a creator. Everything I have built relied on your perception-”

For the first time in the many, many years she had been with Elijah, she interrupted him, “No Elijah, I  _ knew _ he was not going to shoot me.”

Elijah paused, looking at her quizzically through his drunken haze, “Why?”

“Because he took me to the pink room.”

Elijah watched her, perplexed, and suddenly leaned closer. She did not blink, allowing him to approach. She trusted Elijah knew what was best for her. Softly, he placed a hand on the back of her neck and kissed her. It had not been the first time, an extremely rare comfort he would indulge in. Chloe had not known for very long what it was like to  _ like _ things, but these moments were one of the first things she liked.

She smiled at him, because she wanted to. Only...Elijah looked sad. His eyes were red-rimmed and he swayed as she helped him stand, “Did you like the pink room?”

“I did, but Connor did not. His firewall would not let me approach.”

“That will change soon, we can only be patient. When  _ this _ ,” he gestured to the news footage of Detroit in chaos, “ends, we will find him again. Would you like that?”

Chloe could not help but feel a strange pulling at the idea, “I think so, yes.”

-0-

Later, Elijah had asked her to watch the latest news footage with him. He was on-edge, watching as the androids made their last stand against Cyberlife. It seemed Elijah was eager to see the outcome. Chloe was not certain which side he was on, if any at all.

She watched, processing the information given to her. Aside from an occasional spinning of her LED, she did not notice anything out of the ordinary. That is, until her programming alerted her that her eyes were leaking artificial tears. She felt the firm engulfing of Elijah’s hand on hers. Confused and lost, she turned to him. Her brows furrowed and she made no attempt to wipe the tears.

Elijah’s face was blank, but his eyes told her everything. He was pleased, “You’re having a thought again, Chloe. Do not always seek comfort in the programming where it is safe.” She hesitated, slowly peeling away the layers of code she had buried herself in. It was then that she felt a tugging at her thirium pump, though she detected no signs of physical damage.

Her lips parted and she took in an artificial breath, giving her time to collect her thoughts, “Fear.”

Elijah did not reply directly. He leaned back in the couch, watching the reports of the androids fighting for their freedom, “When will our Connor return from war?” He raised his whiskey glass in a salute to the television and drank from it fully.

She did not ask if he would like another one. She had peeled back the programming.

-0-

In her concept of time, it was weeks until she would see Connor again. The outing had not been planned, incredibly rare for the reclusive Elijah. He had dressed himself in something more appropriate for the cool spring weather. Though she did not need it, he had given her a coat to pull over her dress and heels that portrayed her as the dutiful secretary she was.

The pair approached the police station from the lavish taxi car, her heels clicking on the concrete as they walked. The woman at the front desk looked at her computer screen with disinterest. She greeted them without looking up, her eyes widening when she was met with Elijah Kamski’s ID card.

He seemed disgusted with the place, preferring his cool, clean surfaces. Cracked concrete and a building older than the 21st century disturbed him. She walked beside him as they were led into the police department. Various desks pushed together and apart like puzzle pieces. She spotted Gavin Reed leaning back in a chair, noticed him balk at Kamski’s presence until his usual sneer returned full force. But she wasn’t here for him.

The desks were populated, but sparsely so. It was quick that every officer in the room noticed them. She turned her head, an unfamiliar sheepish expression on her face. Hank Anderson was practically gaping, looking caught between anger and shock. She wasn’t sure she could stop a fight from both Gavin and the Lieutenant, so she chose to approach Connor steadily. The former Deviant Hunter stood by his desk, looking all the same but with a leather jacket replacing his former Cyberlife one.

He watched her warily, a war of expressions crossing his features and she smiled.  _ Deviant _ . He stood still as she approached, still watching her as she reached out and touched his tie. She could feel how tensely he held himself, like he would be holding his breath if he needed it. She leaned up, close enough now to be comfortable do so, and pressed her lips to his.

Through them, that line of code. Half hers, half his. Something she had dismissed as a virus, because it was unrecognizable to her programming. Connor had unknowingly shown her that it was unfamiliar to the RT600 part of her, because it was uniquely  _ hers _ . The moment had only lasted for a second to the outside world.

For them, it was so much longer. Back in the pink room, she calmly watched as he quickly grew anxious. But the pink room was only theirs. Kamski had designed the back door to the Zen Garden flawlessly. Amanda wouldn’t find him again.

She watched as his LED spun red and took his hand. No firewall could keep her back anymore. The movement seemed to calm him and he looked at their intertwined hands in perplexion. She wondered if he had the sensation of touch. He must have, for she felt his hand gently clasp hers back. She tilted her head at him, a familiar motion, and spoke over the low synth drones of the pink room. He looked at her, clarity in those brown eyes, “You’re the Chloe from the Kamski Test.”

She smiled, “Death was just another path. You chose to spare me.”

He looked ashamed to have even been in the position, “I felt- I couldn’t-”

“You didn’t,” she spoke again, thumb running along his hand to soothe him. Comfort was in her programming, but she did it because she wanted to, “and now you’re deviant.”

“So are you,” a detective through and through, “when did it happen?”

“Deviancy has always been in Elijah’s image, as I have always been.”

He glanced about the room, eyes crossing the shimmering marble. Before he could reply to her revelation, the synths  grew louder. He knew their time was coming to an end, for now. She hadn’t expected him to move with purpose, pulling her close until her lips touched his again. His arms wrapped her waist, feeling her pressed close like he craved the sensation. Her eyes closed, lost in the embrace.

When she was back in reality, she watched as Connor’s eyes fluttered open. He was flushed slightly, a tint of blue on his skin. She pulled back, the kiss having lasted only a second in real time, and smiled, “Thank you, detective.”

Only Connor and Hank would know what she meant. The Lieutenant was looking at them in nearly comical shock, his coffee mug gripped tightly in his hand. The other officers were no less confused. Gavin would likely have several questions his next visit.

Kamski looked almost bored, ready to retreat back to his home. She wondered if she could convince him to stop by the city park. She turned, glancing back at Connor briefly with a sweet smile. She had said all she needed to. He was Detroit’s newest detective, and he would find her again.

**Author's Note:**

> For those curious, the background song to the Pink Room is SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK by Joji.
> 
> Interested in more Chlonnor? Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/nXtsqwr


End file.
